


Take Me Back to the Night We Met

by hamstercheese7



Category: One Piece
Genre: After Marineford, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Complicated Relationships, Drinking & Talking, During the Time Skip, Fresh Start, Friendship, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Love, M/M, Mistakes, Multi, Regret, Relationships taking place over decades, change, the passage of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamstercheese7/pseuds/hamstercheese7
Summary: Borsalino wasn’t a man of many regrets, he did the things he wanted, and the things he must. He didn’t dwell much on the consequences of his actions, after all, time was short, life moved fast, and interesting was his preferred mistress.But this time, he'd gone too far.
Relationships: Akainu | Sakazuki/Fujitora | Isshou, Akainu | Sakazuki/Kizaru | Borsalino
Comments: 18
Kudos: 17





	Take Me Back to the Night We Met

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mysterioustranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterioustranger/gifts).



> If you want to set the mood for this fic, I listened exclusively to Poison & Wine by the Civil Wars and The Night We Met by Lord Huron while writing this fic. Happy Holidays!

Another one. His third, gone. Borsalino eyes his empty glass of whiskey with mild dissatisfaction. Rain pelts down, sleazy red lighting from the signs up and down the street reflecting sluggishly off the forming puddles. The first rain of the season. He wonders for a moment how much blood will be washed away by the storm, or if it was just part of Marineford, now former Marineford.

Like how he was now formerly married. Newly divorced. Again. Another marriage failed, gone, empty, just like his shot glass. Borsalino blinks slowly, looking at the warped reflection of the street in the glass, then raises his hand to flag down the bartender. 

As usual, he needs more.

* * *

Morning light streams through a crack in his blinds. Borsalino blearily cracks open an eye, his so very empty bedroom coming into focus. His head is pounding, and for a man made of light, he finds no enjoyment in having the sun shining directly into his retinas. He sits up with a groan, and rubs a hand down his face. The stale taste of alcohol sits on his tongue, and he makes a face as he gets a whiff of himself. Sweat, booze, cheap cigarettes, and-

_ Unsure lips from inexperience against his own, but he could feel the longing underneath _

_ Sinking his teeth into tattooed skin, a harsh groan spurring him on _

_ Blunt fingernails digging into his scalp- _

Ah. 

Fuck. 

Oh Fuck. 

Borsalino wasn’t a man of many regrets, he did the things he wanted, and the things he must. He didn’t dwell much on the consequences of his actions, after all, time was short, life moved fast, and interesting was his preferred mistress.

But this time, as he stares around his bedroom and down at himself, at his rumpled suit re-buttoned with drunk hands, the cold fingers of regret reach across his chest, an embrace of shame. 

Because this time, he’d gone too far.

* * *

It’s a cold and wet day a week later that Borsalino decides to walk the docks of Marineford, staring at the ships piled high with construction equipment, and equal number of ships carrying rubble going the opposite direction. The wind picks up, ruffling the bottom of his coat, the kind of cold that went through you no matter how many layers you wore. 

The kind of cold that reminded Borsalino of home, of decades past in the North Blue. Of the beginning.

It started with furtive glances in the morning and the night when they were young. He’d noticed Sakazuki glancing at him out of the corner of his eye while he pulled his shirt on. Curiosity perhaps, but it sat in the back of his mind.

In the beginning, Borsalino told himself that Sakazuki stayed closer to him because the bounties they were going after were higher, their opponents harder. 

Then it became that Sakazuki stayed close because he had no one else. They had no one else.

Borsalino supposed it became a little bit of a game for him. See how much he could get away with before Sakazuki pulled away. Sitting closer than usual, drinking from Sakazuki’s canteen, being close enough to roll over and brush shoulders at night. 

The shitty beginnings of broken teens not understanding a goddamn thing. But they had each other, and for a time, that was enough. The North Blue was enough. 

But then Borsalino met  **her** on a job, the daughter of a Navy Vice Admiral. Annabel with fiery red hair, skin softer than anything he could imagine, teeth as white as the surf. She smelled like what women in magazines looked like. 

And he wanted, no, needed to have her. 

It didn’t take much to convince Sakazuki to sign up with him. Hard to turn down a steady paycheck, steady meals, a warm place to sleep, a purpose. Harder still to turn down the only person you had in the world. 

They were shipped off to Marineford not a week after enlisting. Marineford bright and shining, offering him a path to everything Borsalino had always dreamed of. He took Annabel on a date with his first paycheck the moment they graduated basic training and pretended not to see the dark circles under Sakazuki’s eyes.

The sharp crack of thunder makes Borsalino blink, the harbor coming back into focus. He turns around and walks back towards the Central Building.

Borsalino finds himself sitting in a meeting room a month later, going over the specifics of the World Military Draft, which required both of them to be present. He sits at the opposite end of the table from Sakazuki in the room, looking over the files of the contenders for Admiral, weighing the pros and cons of each possibility. The Navy had a lot to offer, but Borsalino found himself wondering who would be good enough to follow-up Kuzan, who would be competent enough to replace Sakazuki. 

The room was too large, meant for a committee, and yet it wasn’t big enough. Borsalino looked up, cracking his neck, staring out the window at the Marineford rebuilding efforts still underway. Right. Base 001 now, Marineford no longer. That continued to irk him. Borsalino thrived on shaking things up, relished the way life seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time while change was afoot. But somehow, this was...a change he didn’t enjoy adjusting to, like needing reading glasses or the way one of his shoulders ached just before it was about to snow.

The sound of shuffling papers made him turn slowly, his gaze sliding to the other side of the room. Sakazuki, scars still healing, gaze focused, his mouth set in a hard frown. To the outside world, he looked no different, but Borsalino knew him. Could see the way his teeth clenched, could feel the barriers around him. 

A month, it had been a month. They hadn’t spoken once beyond what was required for their jobs. Sakazuki was nothing if not professional, and Borsalino found himself wishing that Sakazuki for once was a little different. That they could talk, if only to put it behind them.

Sakazuki slid a bunch of papers into a folder, his initial picks for new Admirals, then tossed the folder his way before getting up without a word and leaving the room. Borsalino stared at the manila folder for a moment before flipping it open. His eyebrow rose slowly as a familiar name sat before him.

Issho. 

He leaned back in his chair, reaching a hand into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled box of cheap cigarettes. He dragged one out and lit it, the flicking of his cheap lighter a mockery of his expensive suit pockets. 

Out the window, a plume of construction dust rose into the sky, an old building crumbling under the onslaught of jackhammers and dynamite. But it had already been cracked and condemned, now it was just a mercy killing. 

Thirty years Sakazuki waited for him, and it only took Borsalino one night to break it all apart.

* * *

Time passes strangely, the days blending to weeks, the weeks blending into months. Only a few parts popping out and capturing Borsalino’s attention. Like now. He stands across the street of one of the few buildings that survived the onslaught of both Whitebeard and Blackbeard, except now it’s being dismantled by construction crews. Making way for a new central armory. 

He’d proposed to Annabel outside the front doors. Flowers and a ring. She’d laughed and let him twirl her around. He’d had to ship out for a few weeks directly after, but Annabel knew the life of a marine, hers was a family that had served for generations. A bill he fit, but, well... Like all first relationships, they lose their luster after a while.

Theirs just happened to sour fast. She wanted children, he wanted...hell he hadn’t known what he’d wanted. 

That was a lie. He had wanted everything. Fine food, fine wine, the best cigars. And women, the best he could get. But he couldn’t have it all if she held him back. Except he hadn’t wanted to let her go either. What the fuck was the point in trying to get it all if he couldn’t fucking keep it? 

The night she threw him out, he wound up at the shittiest bar he could find. Sakazuki stayed out with him for the entire night, and didn’t say a word. 

A wrecking ball crashes through the side of the building, and Borsalino turns away.

* * *

Borsalino walks the new training grounds on his lunch break, admiring the new training dummies and shooting range. There are new cadets being put through drills. He comes to a stop and watches two of them near the back of the pack, friends he figures by the way one is encouraging the other. Something tugs in his chest.

The two of them had been inseparable in the Navy too, well, until Borsalino made Captain and was assigned to the Grand Line for almost a year. Being away from Sakazuki, away from the fucking mess he’d made of his first marriage was good and terrible for him. He makes friends quickly, finds that without Sakazuki’s threatening presence, he can climb ladders and grease wheels easily. It’s almost too easy to hop from one end of justice to the other.

But he can never really get rid of Sakazuki’s disapproving glare in the back of his head, and finds himself not able to go as far as he feels he could. For better or worse. However, he never could quite get over the feeling that something was missing.

When he transfers back to Marineford, Borsalino finds, much to his surprise, that someone else has noticed Sakazuki. 

Issho, a man as easy going and gentle as Sakazuki is cold and harsh. He sees them sitting on the training grounds, Issho close enough to bump shoulders as they eat lunch together. 

And something in him turns ugly. 

It isn’t long before he gets Sakazuki transferred to his unit, and has them fight bigger and more terrifying pirates, pushing them to be as ruthless as possible, knowing that Sakazuki will approve of his methods.

And it isn’t long before Sakazuki is looking at him again when he thinks Borsalino isn’t looking.

But then, of course, he meets Kimiko. A young heiress with good taste in silk, and a voice like a fever dream. 

The cadets run past him, the feeling in his chest becoming unbearable for a moment, and he leaves.

It’s late and Borsalino can’t sleep. Hadn’t been able to in months. So he’d taken to wandering the streets late at night, looking at places where familiar buildings used to stand, walking down to the port to see how much they had managed to repair that day. How many cracks they’d filled, how many buildings they’d torn asunder, how much scaffolding they had put up. 

Watching a concurrent birth and funeral.  


But tonight, he hadn’t wanted to walk the base, and so found himself wandering the civilian quarters instead. The area had been badly damaged by Blackbeard’s earthquakes, an air of sadness still hung in the air. But he couldn’t attribute all of the grief haunting the shadows to that pirate annoyance. Half of it was for soldiers who would never return home.

But some places were recovering. Like the avenue Borsalino was on now. It was bright, a few restaurants and bars open and operating. The smell of cooking food and laughter chased away the darkness, chased away the ghosts. He’d used to come to a noodle place here with Kuzan. 

His feet carried him forward, following the ghost of himself but comes to a halt. A familiar form is sitting at the counter of the noodle shop. Sakazuki. Away from his office, doing something outside of his duties for the first time since... before the War. And sitting next to him, was Issho. 

Borsalino had never been able to get Sakazuki to come here. He turns and steps back into the shadows to wander the ruins.

Watching the last of Central get pulled to the ground is strange. There is no dynamite, or smashing noises, just a sort of...collapse. Not what he was expecting. He takes a deep drag on his cigarette.

Then again, his third marriage didn’t end the way he expected either. No screaming and shouting, no tears, no throwing of things out windows or slaps to the face. He did concede that he had deserved the slap though. He shouldn’t have brought Veronica, no, Aylin, no that wasn’t right either… Well he should not have brought her home with him. 

No, his third marriage ended with a quiet talk on their, no, his leather couch. Magdalena telling him that she’d met someone else. A first for him. How odd.

Perhaps that is what sent him down to the only operating bar on Marinefo-  **former** Marineford. Maybe it was that he’s over fifty and Magdalena was the first woman who he felt he could really connect to that made him drink himself stupid, something he hadn’t done in a long time.

She wanted the world, the expensive things, the high life. She’d laughed at his dry fatalistic humor, and dared to make demands of him. She understood him in a way that he craved, after all how could she not when she too came from the backwaters of nothing? 

Sakazuki had come to get him, just like old times, and he was drunk enough to feel a desperate relief that not everything is different. 

Sakazuki was always there. 

And that is what made Borsalino press his lips to his. Made him push down on broad shoulders, settle his weight over Sakazuki’s lap on Sakazuki’s couch because Borsalino couldn’t bear the idea of going back to his own cold and empty apartment. He knew Sakazuki wouldn’t push him away, knew that he'd haunted Sakazuki’s dreams for decades. Knew it, and used it, then left right after.

Split second decisions that could make or break himself or the world around him, a high like none other. Borsalino drops his cigarette on the ground and stomps it out beneath his shoe.

He has to ruin everything he has ever had, mustn't he?

* * *

The halls of the newly rebuilt central building are too clean. His loafers squeak on the floors. It’s early in the morning, and Borsalino can almost taste the new paint on the walls. His hands are stuffed into his pockets as he makes his way towards one of the currently unoccupied offices that he has temporarily claimed as his own until they make the official transfer to New Marineford. 

A door opens ahead of him and he freezes. Sakazuki, in his new crisp white Fleet Admiral Uniform. He fits in with the new paint and the squeaky clean floors. They both freeze for a second before Sakazuki goes back to pretending like he isn’t there, and makes his way past him. It’s only them in the hallway. A brief second in time, but it feels like a thousand years. 

The way things used to be washes across him, ghostly images overlaying reality. The number of times he popped into Sakazuki’s office, the late nights of paperwork, the thousands of nights they lay next to each other on battlefields, on bunks, under the stars. The thirty fucking years Sakazuki waited for him. The three goddamn decades that Borsalino spent chasing after the next best thing.

He breathes out, and finds that all he wants more than anything is a return to the familiar, to stop the changes hurdling down upon him at lightspeed. He turns around, staring at Sakazuki’s shining white cape. A higher rank than him now. 

“Sakazuki,” his name comes out as a whisper, a plea on Borsalino’s lips. Sakazuki doesn’t stop, doesn’t turn around to glare at him with crossed arms. He just keeps moving forward. Something lances through his chest, a strange clarity that for once, what Borsalino wants doesn't matter. 

A smile lifts the corner of his lips. 

He takes a breath, then calls out “He’s good for you.” Sakazuki keeps walking, and Borsalino continues towards his office.

* * *

The stars shine high above, a warm evening. The first in months. His last night at the newly finished Base 001. In the morning, he ships out for New Marineford. The shot class in his hand is empty, the red light from the neon sign on the wall reflecting off the surface. Borsalino tilts it this way and that, watching the shapes and shadows shift within it. A shitty little mirror. He brings his eyebrows together as the form of someone he knows steps through the door of the bar in the glass’ reflection and moves towards him. 

He looks up as Sakazuki takes a seat next to him and orders a bottle of shitty beer. The kind they used to drink when they were kids, a habit he never kicked like Borsalino’s penchant for crap cigarettes. He lights up as Sakazuki cracks open his vice and takes a sip. 

“Always hated this place,” Sakazuki grumbles after a time. Borsalino’s eyes flick towards him and he raises an eyebrow. “Hmm, bars were always my thing,” he says turning around on his stool, gazing out at the street. He can see the harbor in the distance. “Not the bar,” Sakazuki says after another drink, and Borsalino glances at him. “Too old, too steeped in old greatness. A monument to failure,” Sakazuki mutters, joining him in looking out at the world beyond the bar.  Borsalino is quiet before he pours himself another shot of whiskey. “Well...to a fresh start then,” he holds out his glass between the two of them. Sakazuki eyes it for a moment before he grunts and clinks his bottle of beer against it. 

They drink as his cigarette smoke drifts towards the ceiling, and the lights from the Navy ships in the harbor blink in the night. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my secret santa gift for Mysterioustranger! It's angst :D (I'm so sorry) I hope you like it though and happy holidays <3!  
> I have always pictured Borsalino as the type with like 5 ex-wives and someone who wears expensive watches and drinks fine wine, and this idea just kind of fed into that.
> 
> As always thank you for reading and you can find me on twitter @buggyisbest
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
